Ever been in a pit? Ever been stuck in the miry clay? Ever felt like you are sinking deeper and deeper as the days passed by?
I’m not talking about a dirt pit on the side of the road. As bad as it would be to get stuck in one of those, the pit I’m talking about is much scarier and much more dangerous. It’s the pit that King David speaks about in Psalm 40.
Read MoreWe wrapped up our series on THE PROMISED LAND and this week's guest speaker wrapped us up with a bang!
Special thanks to my dear friend and sister (in Christ) Maryan Farag, who taught us that defeat is not only possible in the Promised Land/Life, but it's also expected. Thankfully though, defeat isn't the end of the line; it's only a pit stop along the way when we understand the principles Maryan shares with us today.
Now go get those promises!
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This is a guest post from Shereen Marcus - a proud member of St. Timothy & St. Athanasius church who has guest posted before. In today's post, Shereen speaks candidly about her experience with the children's program at STSA - a program she has been instrumental in creating and managing since the start. And if you too are interested in guest posting on my blog, please visit my Guest Post guidelines for more info.
Several years ago, I was entrusted with heading up the Youth Ministry program at my church. Then, a short time later, I was asked to take a step away. I thought I was doing a good job, and my priest didn’t disagree, but yet he still asked me to step away from it. But… I wasn’t done yet.
“You don’t have to agree,” he said, “But you do have to obey.”
I was devastated. Re-vamping the Orthodox Church model for Sunday School had become a passion of mine. And to be honest – I really thought I was doing a good job. Kids were having fun – and parents were telling me how it was their kids who dragged them to Church instead of the other way around.
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It’s now been one month since Easter. Can you believe it? One month since the most glorious and life-changing week ever... one month since we confidently believed that a new life was ahead of us and we’d never go back to our old ways or old habits or old lifestyles.
It was one month ago that we were filled with hope and everything looked bright.
But how about now? Are you still feeling that way? Do you still believe that “life will never be the same again?” Do you still feel the invincibility that you felt when you beheld the empty tomb and proclaimed boldly, “Christ is risen from the dead!”
In other words, are you still living in the power of the Resurrection? Or is back to “same old, same old” for you?
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There’s nothing like a good song to lift my spirits. Music is a very powerful thing, and to me… it’s how my heart worships. It’s the strongest way my spirit connects with God.
Now, if I were to tell you that hip hop is my favorite genre of music, you might think I’m crazy; but there is some seriously good Christian hip hop out there, and it’s a beautiful thing!
There’s one song in particular that I’ve been listening to (on repeat) for the past several weeks. It comes from the album Riseby Trip Lee (whose concert I just attended last night, and it was AWESOME!!). The song is called Sweet Victory.
Read MoreYesterday I preached a sermon based on the story of the Prodigal Son (which I’ll assume everyone knows but it wouldn’t hurt to go back and read it as a refresher, see Luke 15:11-32). The story is an exact fit for all that I wrote about last week. When I read the story in the morning, what jumped out at me was how deep the boy had fallen and how amazing his deliverance was. He went from the deepest pit to the highest palace in no time.
How deep did he sink? We often have this picture of the Prodigal Son eating pig’s food with dirty animals in a pen. But actually that is NOT what the Bible says. The Bible doesn’t say he ate food with the pigs; what the Bible says is actually that it was even worse than that.
“And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.” Luke 15:16
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It looks like I hit a nerve yesterday with my blog post. Several people took the time to comment on the blog, others emailed me and some just stopped me in the hallway at the school pickup line. The tweets and retweets were flying left and right linking people to the blog post (and I even learned how to use my first hashtag, #passionretreat).
Yesterday’s post became the highest viewed post on my blog – and it hasn’t even been up for 24 hours. What does all this mean? It means exactly what I said yesterday: TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE LIVING IN THE PIT.
For too many of us, the pit has become an accepted standard of living – we feel like we can’t get out of it. Nothing we do can free us from it. We fast, we pray, we go to church, we give our tithe, we do everything right. BUT WE’RE STILL LIVING IN THE PIT!
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